PARIS, FRANCE – OCTOBER 24: The Eiffel Tower dominates the Parisian skyline on October 24, 2023 in Paris, France. Paris will host the Summer Olympics from July 26 till August 11, 2024. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Police subdued the man, a 25-year-old French citizen who had spent four years in prison for planning a violent offense. After his arrest, he expressed anguish about Muslims dying, notably in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, and claimed that France was an accomplice, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. The attacker apparently cried “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), Darmanin added.
“This person was ready to kill others,” Darmanin told reporters.
The attacker went after a German couple with a knife, killing the man and used a hammer to injure two others.
The fatal attack occurred in the 15th district of the French capital with the assailant using a knife to kill the German tourist, who was not identified. He then crossed the Seine river to the Right Bank and used a hammer to attack the injured. Details about the victims were not immediately known.
France has been under a heightened terror alert since the fatal stabbing in October of a teacher in the northern city of Arras by a former student originally from the Ingushetia region in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains and suspected of Islamic radicalization. That fatal attack came three years after another teacher was killed outside Paris, beheaded by a radicalized Chechen later killed by police.
“We will cede nothing in the face of terrorism. Never,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on X, formerly Twitter, sending her condolences to the victims and their families.
